1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a server device, in particularly, to a server device and a method of sharing BIOS.
2. Related Art
A common personal computer (PC) can only be operated by a single user at one time. Therefore, a computer capable of supporting multiple users at the same time and having high computation ability has been developed, which is named server. The server is operated by multiple clients over the network.
A conventional tower server has a large volume and occupies much space. When an enterprise needs a server system consisting of multiple servers, a considerably large space is necessary for accommodating the entire hardware architecture.
Then, a rack mount server system is developed, in which several server mainframes with the height of 1U (i.e., 4.445 cm) are placed on a single cabinet for centralized management. Compared with the tower server system, the rack mount server system occupies less space and is arranged more orderly. The rack mount server system is commonly seen in a computer center.
In recent years, the rack mount server system is further progressed into a blade server system, which saves much more space than the rack mount server system, and is suitable for occasions with limited space, such as offices, and is more suitable for commercial economy.
In the blade server system, multiple single board server mainframes (i.e., the mainboards) are integrated into a single casing through a complete pedestal (also called a blade pedestal). The pedestal provides the functions of power supply, heat dissipation of fan, and network communication in a centralized management manner. The mainboards are inserted into the pedestal, and the entire hardware architecture looks like a blade, so the hardware architecture is named a blade server system. In the blade server system, all the server mainframes may share the resources, such as a power supply, a display, an input device, and a network environment. Therefore, the blade server mainframe needs fewer elements such as power supplies and fans than the environment using the multiple rack mount server systems or tower server systems. Since the number of the internal elements in the machine is reduced, the power consumption is greatly reduced accordingly. Furthermore, customized functions may be provided in response to the clients' requirements without changing the whole system.
A basic input/output system (BIOS) is the most basic firmware program codes stored in the computer hardware, and mainly used for Power-On Self Test (POST), initialization, recording system settings, providing a routine library, and loading an operating system. The BIOS is a micro operating system in communication with the hardware.
At present, in a blade server system, each of the mainboards is equipped with a Read Only Memory (ROM), so as to store the BIOS used for booting.
In order to update the BIOS, the mainboard of the BIOS to be updated must be started to execute a BIOS update procedure on its ROM. However, to update all BIOS of the mainboards in the blade server system is time-consuming and has a low efficiency.